No longer will they be able to play the role of underdog.

The NIU men’s soccer team is no longer the little team that sneaks up on its opponents with hard-nosed play.

They are now more like the pavement-pounding trains that rumble through the downtown DeKalb area; a lesson that NIU coach Steve Simmons said he and his staff started to hammer home to players last spring.

NIU started out slowly on Friday, like a commuter train that had just passed through a residential neighborhood.

“We came out to a very flat start,” NIU coach Steve Simmons said. “UMKC is 3-1 for a reason, the next thing you know we are down 2-0.”

It was then that the engine of the NIU offense got going. Kyle Knotek got the wheels churning with frenetic activity.

It looked like there were six of the sophomore midfielder on the field, as Knotek’s 5’6″ frame was in on every scrum, loose ball and 50-50 ball.

Not to be outdone, junior midfielder Steve Kolzow joined the fray.

Kolzow worked the wide side of the field, and in the 61st minute, the NIU attack finally looked like a train steaming downhill at full speed.

The Aurora native blew past a pair of UMKC defenders, and NIU was in a 3-on-3 situation in need of a goal to tie.

In a split second, the offense threw the brakes on as players gathered into the open slots in the UMKC defense.

Like a commuter train that had just unloaded its human cargo, Kozlow sent a low line drive across the field.

The UMKC goalie stumbled and got stuck on the short side of the goal mouth.

Kolzow hit Marcus McCarty with the cross.

McCarty gathered himself, and in what seemed like slow motion, fired of a precise shot into the back of the net.

The left foot of McCarty, the steam that drives the NIU locomotive, had tied the game 2-2.

“That was a good run by ‘Stevie K,'” McCarty said. “He played a good cross but back, I told him I wasn’t going to run all the way in because that is where everybody goes.”

Even though they mounted a two-goal comeback, the postgame mood was somber.

The atmosphere was like a wake, as Simmons and the team know that a grueling schedule will not allow much time to get the train moving full speed at all times.

“This is a result for them no doubt about it,” Simmons said “A 2-2 draw is a great result for them; we’ve got to take the lesson away that we need to bring our lunch pail to work, and in the first half we forgot that.”